Sunday, August 2, 2009

Well it's official......I am now a true man....for I have climbed the Great Wall Of China, and what an experience!!!!!

The building of sections of the great wall started way back in the 7th century BC, built by individual states to protect their borders from other would be invading peoples, it wasn't until the first emperor of China, Qin (pronounced chin, and where China got it's name) Shi Huang decided to combine all the walls in 221 BC in an effort to keep out invading Xiongnu from the north. His General MengTian used a labour force of three hundread thousand soldiers, as well as criminals, civil servants and conscripts to combine the individual walls and to build additional.

The wall is now around 8,800 km long. Built between the 7th century BC and the 16th century AD, it required a workforce of millions and at it's peak during the Ming Dynasty was guarded by a million soldiers.

Our tour group was taken to the Badaling portion of the wall, just north of Beijing, Bada means giving access to every direction, it was apparently a very strategic point in the wall. First constructed in 1505 by the Ming Dynasty, it is 7.8 meters high and is wide enough for 10 people to walk along abreast or 5 horses or 5 people with umbrellas as it was raining as we were touring.

Try to sneak through the small guard house openings with a bunch of other people with umbrellas, actually had my umbrella ripped from my hand by a couple people's umbrellas as they were squeezing by me, so here I was holding a camcorder in one hand a camera wrapped around my neck, a telephoto lens in my side pocket chasing down my umbrella.... I don't even like or use umbrellas, but had to keep the rain off my lens somehow, hard to keep track of everything and still take pictures of the momentous occasion.

I would stop every once in a while to touch and smell the wall and look through the tiny peepholes and imagined how it would have been back then fending off invading forces. The majesty and immenseness of the wall, what a feat of engineering to build such a landmark, the loss of life just in building the wall reaching into the millions, many were buried in the wall itself.

It finally stopped raining and left cool atmospheric clouds cutting across the distant wall and landscape, very cool effect. You notice how the wall seems to wind across the hills forever like a dragon. Dragons mean a lot to the Chinese people. A Dragon is a power of good. They fend off evil spirits, bring prosperity, good fortune and symbolise greatness, goodness and many blessings.

One thing you notice real fast is you do a lot of climbing, to get to the top of the section we were on takes a little under an hour, good thing it was cooler then it would have been if not for the rain, you get a real work out, but looking down from the top is an experience you will never forget. One thing I did is take a video of a walkthrough of the Great wall, just to give you an idea of the sights and sounds I experienced that day

Time went by way too fast before you knew it we were down and done and heading off to our next adventure on the tour, but all good things must come to an end, as did the military usefulness of the wall, it had it's time but the high cost of manning and maintaining it became too much, along with internal power struggles. A border General unhappy with his superiors let in the Manchus in 1644 to invade Beijing, overthrow the short lived Shun Dynasty and starting the Qing Dynasty.

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comments:

wow, i have never been here yet, but it is in my list of places to see, hopefully, within the next 5 years i can make it there. i'd love to climb the Great Wall of China too, and you have wonderful pictures.

Loved your pictures and video. Thank you so much for sharing them with us. I would love to visit foreign countries to see historical sights but my husband isn't keen on traveling outside the mainland US borders.

Thanks Moonshadow, I wasn't too keen on leaving the country either, but I bit the bullet got my passport and threw all caution to the wind, so happy I did, next major trip is going to be to Oregon for the 2017 Total Eclipse of the Sun,lol.

Hi Max , good to see you back and I hope you had a good time away, yes Dragons to the Chinese culture were important. We got a huge workout and burned off a lot of calories but put them back on with all the food we ate,lol.

The eclipse was very cool, wasn't completely shut out got the partial and the 5 minutes of darkness.CNN was a blast, just got to my hotel one one night and an email was waiting for me asking for an interview, very cool, never know who's reading your blog,lol.\m/\m/

Bob, AMAZING photos and commentary. You must have had such visions running through your head as you faced the Great Wall and tackled the steps. What an experience!!! I now have two friends who have climbed the Great Wall of China. AWESOME!!!

THis is a great post. I especially like the video on the wall. Fabulous.

As I listened to the people waling alongside of you it sounded like everyone was in high spirits. Do the Chinese people seem to be peaceful? We hear so much over here about hos miserable their lives are. But lately the more I read a different picture seems to emerge. For instance, they won't allow you to access your blog, yet they are huge users of the Internet. What was your general impression of their moral?

Thanks swubird, they are pretty happy and a nice bunch of people, I will post more about the general feeling, they accept what they have to , like blocked social networks, a lot are on the net just more localized then we are, again it is a communist state so they work with it, it is very clean over there and there are a lot of not rich people but they make the best of it with play and music to handle their stress which I will also go into.\m/\m/

Oh Bob that must have been good experience. Too bad you could only climb a section of it, lol. For a while I never knew that the wall was that long. Interesting fact about some being buried in the walls, and other stuff you wrote. Hopefully one day I get to go. How about sunny days, did you get any? For some reason I like the rain effect. You know looks like not only Canada is getting the wet weather. Bob again thanks for sharing your story, I am glad you went because you brought something new and great - like great wall of China, of course not that new, lol. BTW congrats for making the articles. Anna :)

Lol, thanks Lynda, I was getting quite a work out for sure, don't think they have any medical people around though,lol. Glad you got your Bobascope, let me know how it works for you, got a big moon right now and then Jupiter in the South east, you'll see it's 4 bright moons as well.\m/\m/

Very informative post. Nice post. China is a magnanimous holiday. longest fortification wall worldwide in china.To know more about the climate and history visit china.The striking Badaling Great Wall in Yanqing County, Beijing, is symbolic of the haughty eminence of the olden Chinese labour. Gugong or Forbidden City was the former royal residency of 24 kings of the Ming and Ching Dynasty.Golden Water River is a must watch. Don't fail to visit Hall of Supreme Harmony.